Sun Appears Much Darker Outside of Earth Atmosphere Than Under It - (olber's paradox?)

Over the years have stumbled across various explanations for why the sun - as depicted in NASA/SpaceX pics, videos, feeds - looks so dark and small
compared to how bright it appears even from ground on earth on a cloudy day!

the light you see from the sun comes to you reflected off the ground, grass etc. similarly, the sky looks light because the sunlight is reflected off
particles of dust (or water droplets - for clouds) in the air.

f you were on the Moon, which has no atmosphere, the sky would be black both night and day. You can see this in photographs taken during the Apollo
Moon landings. Yet we know from experience that space is black! This paradox is known as Olbers' Paradox. Many different explanations have been put
forward to resolve Olbers' Paradox. The best solution at present is that the universe is not infinitely old; it is somewhere around 15 billion years
old. That means we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 15 billion years. The light from stars farther away than that
has not yet had time to reach us and so can't contribute to making the sky bright.

These explanations - even NASA's one - make me cringe gag chuckle and wonder who comes up with this bull and why the masses believe it.

Here on earth's surface we receive only about half of the visible sunlight due to atmosphere & clouds (about quarter of sunlight reflected back out
into space by atmos/clouds, and quarter of sunlight absorbed by them)- yet it is obviously blindingly bright to look up at the sun let alone the sky
in general. (It doesn't even look like the same sun in our sky from 10 years ago - you know, the one that looked warmer orangey-yellow all day, not
blueish-white until near dusk, but that might be attributable to smog & chemtrails, another topic itself)

Yet cameras supposedly recording or streaming from sats or craft outside of the atmosphere show our sun, Sol - supposedly a star - that looks like
merely a streetlight in the distance, at best. Why?

I think the right answer is pollution plus the gases of the atmosphere
In space you have almost vacuum, with no atmosphere. The light has a straight (almost) path from the light source to your eyes.
On Earth you get bombarded with reflections.

Could it be that the cameras they send into space are designed to close the exposure down to compensate for the brightness of the sun?

Take any halfway decent camera with auto exposure and point it at an exposed light bulb and when it gets done doing it's thing, you will see the
light bulb not appearing to be as bright as it is and anything that may be in the background will appear to be much dimmer than it actually is.

I don't know that this is the explanation for it but it makes sense to me. I've spent some time tinkering with video cameras and you can actually
watch auto exposure working. I would assume that space appears to be black when (for example) the moon is in frame because the exposure system has to
clamp down to show any detail on the surface of the moon.

A camera is not an eyeball. A camera is only roughly designed to function like a human eyeball. But it can't hold a candle to seeing things the way
we see them.

originally posted by: Artesia
Yet cameras supposedly recording or streaming from sats or craft outside of the atmosphere show our sun, Sol - supposedly a star - that looks like
merely a streetlight in the distance, at best. Why?

You're the one who made the thread, aren't you supposed to tell us the answer? I get the
feeling you don't really want to know.

Similar questions about why cameras on the moon didn't record stars if there were stars in the sky have been asked, and it always boils down to the
need to understand how photography works, which the people asking these questions, don't understand. The question about stars not seen in moon
photography has been answered thousands if not millions of times and the answer to your question would be similar and related, that photography
depends on a lot of variables, such as:

The sensitivity of the recording media, in the old days film and more recently, electronic sensors.
Aperture or the size of the opening in the camera to let in light.
Shutter speed.
Contrast between the brightest part of the scene and the dimmest part of the scene, and which the camera is adjusted to record. It may not have the
capacity to record both. In more modern cameras there may even be electronics to deal with high contrast situations, limiting the exposure from overly
bright objects.

but how much sunlight would drifter be basking in thru his window? (if my calculations were right, twice as much as we bask in on Earth's surface) so
wonder how much would things - especially dark colored, ie 'carbon black' materials - heat up with that ambient temp around 50F.

the sun was blinding and hot on the skin out in Palm Desert today, even though skies partly overcast w lotsa chemtrails and few clouds. sorta like
that middle video that for some reason, embedding properly does not work on ATS:

I don’t think you are using olber's paradox correctly, and confusing not over exposing film in a space setting on bright objects that under develops
space and stars in backgrounds.

You

Yet cameras supposedly recording or streaming from sats or craft outside of the atmosphere show our sun, Sol - supposedly a star - that looks like
merely a streetlight in the distance, at best. Why?

Any type of fisheye lens (any len sized less than 50mm) which is used to make the best of a taking a good image of a close subject is going to make
objects at edge of the photo look unnaturally small. Also, metering for a bright near subject is going to make other items in the photo look
underexposed and dim.

Bet if you took a direct photo of the sun from space with a 50mm lens the sun would not look small nor dim. A 50mm lens is a close approximation of
what the human eye sees, and has about the same “magnification” for lack of a better term.

You are confusing problems of film exposure and lens distortion of objects and ratio and taking Olbers' paradox out of context.

Olbers' paradox

In astrophysics and physical cosmology, Olbers' paradox, named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers (1758–1840), also known as the
"dark night sky paradox", is the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe.
The darkness of the night sky is one of the pieces of evidence for a dynamic universe, such as the Big Bang model. In the hypothetical case that the
universe is static, homogeneous at a large scale, and populated by an infinite number of stars, then any line of sight from Earth must end at the
(very bright) surface of a star and hence the night sky should be completely illuminated and very bright. This contradicts the observed darkness and
non-uniformity of the night.[1]

the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. The darkness of the night
sky is one of the pieces of evidence for a dynamic universe, such as the Big Bang model. In the hypothetical case that the universe is static,
homogeneous at a large scale, and populated by an infinite number of stars, then any line of sight from Earth must end at the (very bright) surface of
a star and hence the night sky should be completely illuminated and very bright. This contradicts the observed darkness and non-uniformity of the
night.[1]

originally posted by: Artesia
^ great point. NASA referenced olber's paradox, and indeed they are applying it inappropriately going off on a tangent about DISTANT stars in the
NIGHT sky that olber's addresses.

apparently because they don't have any other explanation to give ?

for why if we go outside of our atmosphere where sunlight should be twice as bright, it's not.

You not understanding film exposure and lens distortion has noting to do with olber's paradox. Plus, with space photography, imagines might be
through a polarizing filter, or any other type of flier.

So, until you can produce a photo and explain what type of lens was used, what the main focal point was, what aperture was used, what the exposure
was, and what type of flier was used, you don’t have squat

Your basically rehashing and rebranding why there was no stars in the background of astronauts on the moon. The answer was the stars were there. But
they don’t show in the pictures of astronauts because the relatively bright astronaut were correctly exposed, and the background was
underexposed.

again, NASA gave olber's paradox as the reason why Sol and stars look darker in space than on earth.

so they are admitting things - even sunlight - are darker outside of our atmosphere, then quoting some cockamamie (misapplied) paradox that is meant
to explain other things at night like on the moon and such.

again, NASA gave olber's paradox as the reason why Sol and stars look darker in space than on earth.

Are using olber's paradox out of context. And by definition has nothing to do with Sol in photos.

olber's paradox By definition

In astrophysics and physical cosmology, Olbers' paradox, named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers (1758–1840), also known as the
"dark night sky paradox", is the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe.
The darkness of the night sky is one of the pieces of evidence for a dynamic universe, such as the Big Bang model. In the hypothetical case that the
universe is static, homogeneous at a large scale, and populated by an infinite number of stars, then any line of sight from Earth must end at the
(very bright) surface of a star and hence the night sky should be completely illuminated and very bright. This contradicts the observed darkness and
non-uniformity of the night.[1] en.m.wikipedia.org...

Another example. If you take a wide angle picture of earth metered to the brightness of earth taking up a bulk of the frame, the distance sun is
going to look unnaturally small and dim if it is In the background. Has nothing to do with olber's paradox.

So. Please stop using olber's paradox out of context. And please stop using the limitations of photography and film to push a false narrative.

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